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my movie released in the UK

sonnyboo

sonnyboo

My first feature film HORRORS OF WAR just got released in the UK as ZOMBIES OF WAR!



It's always a surreal experience when your movie comes out in the UK and no on thought to tell the producers, directors, or anyone involved.... or pay them for it (yet).

Also, yet again I cannot stress to them that the blue cover with armies of zombies looks cool, but is horribly wrong for our movie. The old way of getting their money for the rental and laughing to the bank doesn't work in the information age of the Internet. Every review says they feel ripped off by the cover, thus letting people know, not endearing the public towards the movie, and creating bad buzz. Changing the name to "ZOMBIES OF WAR" makes sense. They are cashing in on ZOMBIELAND, etc. and the zomie film movement, etc. even though it is more of what Quentin Tarantino referred to as the Italian filmmaking "Infected People" syndrome, not zombies per se.


I am not thrilled, but at least it's out in another country! Getting the movie out there is always a good thing. Oh well, yet another DVD version of my movie for my collection.
 
How did it get released without you knowing about it? Did they just do it illegally, or did you somehow lose the rights?

Either way it's pretty cool, I guess. I was gonna say 'that's hollywood' with the way they changed the title and put a 'wrong' cover on it, but the UK? I guess that's just the biz... :shrug:
 
Dreadylocks said:
How did it get released without you knowing about it? Did they just do it illegally, or did you somehow lose the rights?
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No, it was legal. We have a sales agent who sells the film for us. I just wish we had found out from him BEFORE it hit shelves...
 
something isn't right there, how does an agent just do that without telling you? Is that stated in your contract that they can?

I would damn sure want to know first.
 
It's been over 3 years since we started selling this film. Yes, I would have liked to have found out from him rather than some guy on the Internet telling me that in IMDB there is a UK title.
 
Darlene always gets me an advance payment, before any deliverables are sent to a buying country. They pay, then we deliver. She also asks me if some offers are too low. For instance, the UK only offered $2000 for TERRARIUM. I promptly declined. It would be nice to have a release over there, but not for what those lowballers were offering!
 
UK Offers have been in the toilet since 2005. I don't know of anyone getting very much in advances over there these days.

Yes, it's an incredibly poor way to find out that your feature film got released and no one told you.
 
Grats on the extra distro; pity 'bout the way you found out.

What's your opinion on films that get renamed, in general, btw? It never really made much sense to me, though it often happened back home in NZ.
 
Zensteve said:
What's your opinion on films that get renamed, in general, btw? It never really made much sense to me, though it often happened back home in NZ.
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Honestly, the name changes don't bother me that much. I would trust to some extent, that we might not be aware of colloquialisms in other countries that either offend or have different meanings to what we Americans might think. That's a reality I did not think I would have any say over.

In Japan they renamed the movie DEAD MAN SOLDIERS, the UK ZOMBIES OF WAR, and every where else was still HORRORS OF WAR because of the double meaning of the title.
 
Zensteve said:
What's your opinion on films that get renamed, in general, btw? It never really made much sense to me, though it often happened back home in NZ.
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On the plus side, it makes you look like you made a whole bunch of movies! Example: These covers? All the same movie:

One
Two
Three


Secondly,....... you're from New Zealand??? Damn cool. :beer:
 
I forgot all about it till now, but I saw your film being cast on JTV sometime last year by a Japanese kid living in the UK. I liked it. It was back to back with Snowblind (?) (The Snow Nazi-Zombie one).

-Thanks-
 
Buddy Greenfield said:
I forgot all about it till now, but I saw your film being cast on JTV sometime last year by a Japanese kid living in the UK. I liked it. It was back to back with Snowblind (?) (The Snow Nazi-Zombie one).

-Thanks-
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What is JTV? IS that a network or just short for Japanese Television?

HORRORS OF WAR/ZOMBIES OF WAR is very much a PLANET TERROR type movie (only we shot ours 2 years before in 2005). I wouldn't want anyone going in to expect too much from it, as it's a low budget 1970's style midnight movie.
 
JTV is… I don’t know what it is called actually, but each member has a personalized channel with chat that they can cast (Play movies off their HD or use a web cam) from.

Fox and some company (Along with JTV) actually employed copyright software that scans the channels against content in their database, so if you are for example casting a Fox film or TV show they will shut you down, but otherwise it’s a free for all of movies and sports, less so than in the past, but still is.

When I saw your film the plane flying overhead seemed familiar, then I caught the title and remembered it from posts here in like 05 when you were just finishing it or color grading it or something.
The audience it was cast to (horror fans) enjoyed it.

JTV LINK:
http://www.justin.tv/directory/entertainment#r=UOUvXKk

-Thanks-
 
And yet again, I find my own film released on DVD, this time in Sweden... without anyone even TELLING us (nonetheless paying, etc.)

163436_479127336055_574276055_6308266_7852663_n.jpg
 
After seeing this film I had the urge to pluck out my own eyeballs it was that bad. It is more painful to endure than pile surgery without anaesthetic.

The best thing about this film is........ well, let's face it there isn't anything good about it.

If you want to waste your money then this is the film for you.

Utter rubbish.


(It gets one star as this system doesn't allow me to give it none.)
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Sounds great!
 
Well I've just added this to my LoveFilm rentals list, and I'm looking forward to seeing it!

Going by the reviews though, seems there's a couple of things that you might want to look in to:
The movie has a BBFC rating of 15, but the box art has an 18 rating, apparently due to a trailer that is on the disc?
The packaging also states that there is a commentry track and a FX feturette, neither of which are on the disc?

You personally might not care too much, that's out of your hands, it's all up to the distributor now, but things like that really could affect sales.
 
I saw that about the certification and I would have thought that that would really piss you off as a filmmaker. It's the whole Blue Valentine debate, except that here the commercial value is being poleaxed by a DVD producer foul up.

I know the guy on the review was dissapointed because it wasn't gory enough, but I would also look at it the other way with an 18 certificate really chopping down the market that can buy it.

As I say, I'd be pissed at the person who made that blunder...
 
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